Mary had dirty laundry. She got tired. She worried. She had days when she wondered whether she was doing any of this right.

She knew what it was like to be pregnant when she was young and frightened. She knew what it was like to give birth away from home. She knew the anxiety of losing a child in Jerusalem and the enormous relief of finding him again. And eventually, she knew something no mother ever wants to know: what it feels like to watch your child die.

Can this be the Mary we celebrate today? Not a statue nor a stained-glass window. A woman. A mother. A believer who had to faithfully live with questions.

We have a tendency to make Mary almost too perfect. We put her in blue robes. We surround her with angels. We place stars around her head. We call her “Queen of Heaven, Mother of God, Immaculate, Blessed among women.” And all of that is true. Even football’s last ditch effort abuses Elizabeth’s so-meaningful greeting. But we can wonder and ponder if, in making Mary so holy, we forget that she was also human.

The Bible tells us remarkably little about Mary’s life. And that gives us permission to use a little imagination.

What might this have been like? After all the hoopla of the resurrection, Did she ever sit alone and recall those early days in Bethlehem? About the night Jesus was born? About holding that tiny child in her arms? Did she ever remember him as a little boy? Perhaps she remembered Joseph teaching him how to work with wood. Did she recall Jesus asking questions—too many questions, as children do?

And she remembered the first time she realized: this child is not really mine to keep. That may have been one of the hardest lessons of Mary’s life. At Cana, Jesus says to her essentially, my hour has not yet come. Mary doesn’t argue. She turns to the servants and says: “Do whatever he tells you.” That may be one of the most beautiful things Mary ever says. She doesn’t say, “Do what I tell you.” She says, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Mary’s whole life becomes an exercise in letting go. Letting go of her plans. Letting go of Joseph’s expectations. Letting go of Bethlehem. Letting go of Jesus as a child. Letting go of him when he became a wandering preacher and we folks misunderstanding him. We don’t live this long without knowing, full well, what “letting go” means. 

And finally, letting go of him at the cross. Perhaps that is part of what the Assumption means. Mary spent her whole life learning how to place herself in God’s hands. And at the end of her earthly life, God completes her journey.

The Assumption is not a reward God gives Mary because she behaved perfectly. It is God’s declaration about what human life is ultimately meant for. Mary’s body matters. Her humanity matters. Her tears matter. Her ordinary life matters. Her motherhood matters. Her suffering matters. And therefore, our humanity matters.

We sometimes think holiness means escaping our humanity. Mary teaches us the opposite. Holiness means allowing God to enter our humanity. Mary was not holy because she never experienced difficulty. She was holy because she kept saying “yes” to God in the midst of difficulties.

Think about her first “yes.” It was not spoken by a woman who knew how everything would turn out. Mary did not have a five-year plan from God. She had a promise. She had questions. She had faith. And she had enough courage to say “yes.”

Years later, standing beneath the cross, she must have wondered what that “yes” had cost her. Imagine the mother of Jesus looking at her son hanging on a cross. There is no angel explaining it. No voice from heaven saying, “Don’t worry, Mary. This will all make sense in three days.” She has to stand there. And watch. That is faith at its most difficult.

Faith isn’t always understanding what God is doing. Sometimes faith is staying there when you don’t understand. Mary stayed. Many of us know what it means to stay. We stay beside a hospital bed. We stay beside someone with dementia. We stay beside a child who’s made terrible choices. People stay with a marriage in spite of… We stay when the future isn’t what we expected. We stay when prayer seems to accomplish nothing.

Mary understands that kind of faith. She doesn’t lecture us about it. She  stands beside us. That may be why Catholics feel so comfortable talking to Mary. We don’t need to explain everything to her. She already knows. She knows what it is to be uncertain, to lose someone, what it is to wonder why God appears to be taking so many naps.

The Church says something astonishing: This woman—this particular human being with a particular human body and a particular human story—is taken into the glory of God. The Assumption tells us that Christianity does not end with our souls floating somewhere in the clouds. God wants the whole person. Body and soul. Memory and personality. Laughter and tears. The person we have been and the person God is calling us to be. Mary’s Assumption is therefore not just about Mary. It is about our destiny.

God does not throw away anything that is genuinely human. Not our love, suffering, memories, failures, even our aging bodies. God takes what we are and, by grace, makes it more than we could ever make it ourselves.

Perhaps we should take Mary down from the pedestal for awhile. Let’s imagine her sitting at the kitchen table. Tired. Thinking. Remembering. Maybe smiling at something Jesus did when he was a boy. Maybe wondering about the things she never completely understood. Maybe missing Joseph. Maybe missing Jesus. Maybe a broad silent smile at some memory that only a mother remembers and treasures. 

Then let us imagine God saying to her: “Mary, you have carried my Son. Now let me carry you.” That is the Assumption. That’s God’s promise to every one of us. One day, someday after all our questioning and struggles, after all our loving and losing, after all those successful efforts and learned failures, after all our attempts toward fidelity – God will carry us home.

Mary got there first. And she turns around and says to us: “Come along. Don’t be afraid.”